"We are not just one thing, we are a prism of culture. My work celebrates this diversity—not explicitly, but with fantasy—in an attempt to create a narrative that is as complicated and elusive as reality."
A kaleidoscopic utopia of mythology and devotion, The Harbingers synthesizes the most iconic motifs of María Berrío’s cross-cultural practice into an intimate scene of two women united in prayer. Executed in 2015 in the artist’s celebrated collage technique that layers innumerable pieces of Japanese rice paper, the present work subsumes the viewer in a fantastical realm that resembles a monumental woven tapestry or stained-glass window. Specifically, Berrío affixes our gaze to the stares of the female protagonists, who pose gracefully besides a domestic Catholic altarpiece and beneath a forest of birds. Inspired by South American folkloric tradition, Berrío’s large-scale works offer an allegorical prism through which she explores her childhood memories in Colombia and experiences with global diaspora and migration. Awarded the prestigious Joan Mitchell Fellowship in 2021 and set to star in an major upcoming solo exhibition at ICA Boston in February 2023, María Berrío has powerfully captivated audiences with her illustrious tableaux of collages that are uniquely rife with cross-cultural nuance.

In the delicate and lush surface of The Harbingers, Berrío visually weaves together multiple histories, alluding to anecdotes both personal and universal, timely and timeless. Though illustrative of a distinctly contemporary magical realism, Berrío’s oeuvre draws from artistic and literary influences alike, from the Surrealism of Remedios Varos and Frida Kahlo to Viennese Successionist works by Gustav Klimt and the writings of Pablo Neruda and Gabriel García Márquez. In her reverently stylistic invocation of diverse Latin American cultural and artistic traditions, Berrío arrives at a fantastical figuration “to create a narrative that is as complicated and elusive as reality.” (Maria Berrio quoted in C.J. Bartunek, “As Complicated and Elusive as Reality,” The Georgia Review, Spring 2019 (online)) The Harbingers revitalizes Berrío’s trove of artistic inspiration, the spiritual mysticism and chromatic exuberance of her protagonists harkening to the fantastical realms of her eclectic influences.

In the layered scene of the present work, two young women intertwine not only figuratively, but also by way of the textured patterns of ornate fabric and floral decor. The ethereal paleness of the women’s fair skin is contrasted by the elaborate patterning of the dresses and headscarves that adorn them, variegated and prismatic textiles that both float and lumber in the domestic scene. In Berrío’s words, these women “are embodied ideals of femininity. The ghostly pallor of their skin suggests an otherworldliness; they appear to be more spirit than flesh. These are the women I want to be: strong, vulnerable, compassionate, courageous, and in harmony with themselves and nature.” (Ibid.) The Harbingers invokes these venerable qualities not only in the feminine duo, but also in the iconographic relics of the Madonna scattered around the altar at the center of the composition. Drawing upon Biblical portraits that recall aesthetic conventions of the Italian Renaissance, Berrío powerfully devotes the canvas to an intimate worship of divine femininity.
"The women who inhabit my paintings are embodied ideals of femininity... These are the women I want to be: strong, vulnerable, compassionate, courageous, and in harmony with themselves and nature."

As in the most celebrated of Berrío’s works, the characters’ harmonious coexistence with animals in The Harbingers present a visual symbol for the artist’s ideals of humanity’s existence in the natural world. In The Harbingers, twelve birds perch around the canvas, framing the domestic scene with a surreal serenity. The moment of vulnerable communion shared between the women occurs in divine connection with nature, as a parrot sits on a woman’s shoulder and an owl balances on the backrest of an artisanal chair. The symbolism of animals alludes to a divine sense of freedom, suggesting the possible transcendence of the human soul into other early incarnations and embodying the artist’s core belief of unity within one cosmos. As Berrío explains, “Birds have been a source of inspiration to people across the world for centuries. To me, birds symbolize freedom of the soul and transcendence of the earthly human form…The dove is a sign of peace in Judeo-Christianity; the hummingbird is a sign of good luck in Latin America…. In my collage, all of these beautiful traditions come together to provide a global portrait of hope.” (Ibid.)
Enlisting the narrative dimensions of poetry, folklore, and personal experience to a delicately paper-collaged canvas of mystical domesticity, Berrío’s The Harbingers resounds as a portrait of feminine empowerment and spirituality. Capturing a beguiling interplay of fantasy and reality, the present work unravels as a scene from an otherworldly tale that welcomes the viewer’s curious spectatorship. Drawn in by the soft and vulnerable intimacy of the two female protagonists, we are invited into the prismatic and embellished world that Berrío has lovingly crafted with precious scraps of paper, torn and reassembled into a devotional portrait of sensuous beauty.